Keys to the offseason for the Edmonton Oilers
Emily Kaplan and Greg Wyshynski of ESPN: Looking at some of the offseason questions and decisions the Edmonton Oilers are facing.
More support for Draisaitl and McDavid – The trade acquisition of Andreas Athanasiou didn’t work out as they had hoped. Tyler Ennis was a good, low-cost veteran acquisition. They could use a few more “grunts” up front, preferably ones who have some defensive side to their game as well.
Re-examine their blue line – They have pending RFAs in Ethan Bear and Matt Benning. Under contract are Oscar Klefbom, Adam Larsson, Kris Russell and Darnell Nurse, none of which are elite. Evan Bouchard and Philip Broberg could develop into one, one day. They could look at another puck-moving defenseman.
Upgrade in net – Mikko Koskinen has a partial no-trade clause and likely isn’t going anywhere. Mike Smith is a pending UFA and there should be plenty of free agent options.
Rangers unsure of their goaltending at the moment
Dan Rosen of NHL.com: The New York Rangers won’t be heading into next with three goaltenders again.
The 38-year old Henrik Lundqvist has one-year left on his contract at an $8.5 million salary cap hit. Rangers president has already spoken with Lundqvist, and there will be more talks.
“Knowing the professional individual that ‘Hank’ is, I can tell you that when we got off the plane back from Toronto, I did have a discussion with him,” New York president John Davidson said. “It was a personal discussion; we’ll leave it at that. We will continue having our discussions to figure out what avenues we’re going to take as we move forward. We’ll handle things the right way and just move forward with this.”
The Rangers could keep Lundqvist for the final year and look to move RFA Alexandar Georgiev this offseason. They would have to retain salary if they were able to trade Lundqvist. A buyout is another option, which would keep him on the books for two years. Lundqvist could also decide to retire and that would take him completely off the books.
“It’s pretty obvious the scenarios that could happen here with our goaltending, but to have an answer for you today, I don’t have that answer, we don’t have that answer,” Gorton said. “We can all look at our cap and wonder what’s next, what we’re going to do? That’s what we’re going to go through. Usually we’ll have our meetings, we’ll talk to our scouts, we’ll talk to our coaches. We’re in the process of talking, going through our exit meetings via Zoom. We’re doing all these things now and the cap is certainly on our mind. We’ll work through it. Reasonable questions but answers we don’t have right now.”